Virender Sehwag has come down hard on the Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) management following their underwhelming IPL 2025 campaign, suggesting that strategic missteps in the batting order played a crucial role in their downfall. In particular, he emphasized the need for big hitters to be prioritized ahead of the captain in the lineup — a lesson he feels KKR could have taken from teams like the Lucknow Super Giants.
Kolkata struggled to find consistency at the crease this season, especially after losing key players like Phil Salt and Shreyas Iyer to rival franchises during the IPL 2025 mega auction. The impact of these absences was felt throughout the tournament, as the team’s batting faltered in crucial matches.
Reflecting on what could have been done differently, Virender Sehwag highlighted how other franchises have been flexible and proactive in reshuffling their batting orders to better suit match situations and player form.
“It is not written anywhere that a captain has to bat in the top three. Look at Pant, he was sending players ahead of him, because they were in form and LSG took advantage of that,” Sehwag said, pointing to a more results-driven approach.
He further noted, “KKR could have done the same. This was the team management and the coaching staff’s responsibility. See, even CSK did it against GT. Shivam Dube and Dewald Brevis came up the order, they changed that up from the recent matches,” indicating that flexibility in strategy is often key to staying competitive.
Kolkata’s season ended with them placed eighth on the points table, holding 12 points and a negative net run rate of -0.3. Their final match only added to the disappointment, as Sunrisers Hyderabad delivered a commanding performance to close out their campaign with a 110-run hammering of KKR — a match symbolic of what could have been for the struggling franchise.
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